So you've arrived at this Simple Machines Forum (SMF)! Perhaps you've been looking at the board index or a screen telling you that you need to register before you can read it and you're wondering what to do next?

Well, some forums permit guests to read and post, some permit guests to read only and some are restricted to registered members. We'd recommend registering at any forum that you see yourself using regularly because many of the most useful features will only become available to you when you do so. Since SMF, however, is such a flexible system that few forums are likely to be identical, we will start by describing four key areas that we'd normally expect to be there for you:

Topic you have posted in Normal Topic Hot Topic (More than 15 replies) Very Hot Topic (More than 25 replies)

Locked Topic Sticky Topic Poll

Jump to:

Some forums show the navigation tree at the top in a space-saving horizontal mode.

The page numbers link to further pages of the board, and may be accompanied by Go Up and Go Down buttons linking to the top and bottom of the current page.

The Mark as Read button enables registered members to mark all posts in this board as 'read'.

The Notify button enables registered members to subscribe to email notification of replies to topics in this board.

The New Topic and New Poll buttons are for starting new topics and polls, as described in the posting help.

The Subject, Started by, Replies, Views and Last post links enable you to sort the columns by these parameters (with Last post also toggling between descending and ascending order as indicated by the little arrow).

The topic icons in the leftmost column are explained by the key below.

The post icons in the next column are sometimes used to draw attention to the mood or purpose of the topic.

The topic subject links to the start of the topic, with extra links for subsequent pages and new buttons to take registered members straight to their first unread post of the topic.

Where the topic has been started or last replied to by a registered member, their names link to their respective profiles.

The Jump to menu provides a convenient quick method of navigating the forum.

The Topic

Sometimes referred to as threads, topics are where you find the actual messages:

The Notify button enables registered members to subscribe to email notification of replies to the topic.

The Mark Unread button enables registered members to mark the topic as 'unread', which means that it will still be listed as new and can be effectively 'saved for later'. Note that this button changes to Add Poll in the bottom button set for users with permission to add polls to existing topics.

The Send Topic button enables registered members to send a link to the topic by email.

The Print button creates a simplified, printer-friendly rendering of the page.